How to Offer In-Demand Ethnic Products and Services

If you identify the ethnic products and services your multicultural customers want or need to buy, you'll be able to stock up on their preferred selections — and succeed in sales with a diverse inventory.

Offer everything, and then some. You can often attract customers from other cultures and boost sales by offering them everything they can get from your competitors, and then some, all in one convenient location, so they don’t have to run around so much.

Keep it real. Carry authentic products whenever possible, and import them if necessary. Ask your customers specifically which products and brands they want you to stock. All you have to do is ask; don’t assume.

If you don’t already know of suppliers that carry the products you’re looking for, search the Web. You can search for supplier followed by the brand name, or search for the name of the product followed by the culture, such as Mexican, Indian, or Chinese.

Provide a taste of home. If your initial product line for your multicultural clientele is successful, talk to customers about what else they would buy that they can’t get locally. Most customers can tell you the brand names of the products they used to buy in their home countries. An online search of that name will likely reveal the nearest distributor. Adding these items can help you expand your product line and gain additional market share.

Stay mainstream. Always keep mainstream products or services available. Don’t crowd out the items that mainstream customers favor with too many ethnic products. You could start to lose both sets of customers because ethnic customers also need mainstream products.